April 2002

Draco looked sharply at her, something she couldn't read flickering across his expression.

"It's fine," he said in a hard voice. "When I said I wanted you willing, that meant you were allowed to say no. Although perhaps try saying it instead of purposely provoking me."

Hermione stared at him in shock.

He clenched his hand into a fist and pressed it against his forehead as though he had a headache.

"Do you want to continue with occlumency?" he asked.

Hermione shifted slightly but didn't answer. She felt knocked off kilter. The conversation hadn't—she didn't—

What did he mean?

Was it possibly a feint, so he could catch her off guard?

If she were allowed to say no to things, he certainly hadn't bothered to communicate that to her. In fact he'd heavily implied the opposite. Although—he hadn't really done much that wasn't primarily to just to provoke her.

So—

She eyed him warily.

Something that she said to him that night had accidentally struck a nerve. Deeply.

What had she said?

That power got him off. Hurting someone who couldn't—or wouldn't—fight back. Using what people cared about to torture and cage them and force them to do things. That he was just the same as Voldemort...

That he was just the same as Voldemort.

That was probably it. He probably regarded himself as better than his Master. Maybe he thought that if he helped the Order overthrow Voldemort that it would leave a vacuum of power that he could fill.

The thought made her insides twist.

Was that really it? Was he playing both sides against each other, thinking that he could seize power in the aftermath?

Perhaps he objected to Voldemort's reign of terror; the attacks used to frame the Order, and all the torture and experiments. Malfoy probably imagined he'd rule in a genteel manner where women were ostensibly "willing" and executions were ceremonial.

Yet—it seemed like he'd been more than just offended. His rage—the rage he carried was surely larger than merely ego or ambition.

Her wary expression seemed to annoy him. He hissed slightly and his teeth flashed.

"Suffice to say, I'm not going to hurt you," he ground out. "So stop looking at me as though you expect me to curse you in the back."

The words made Hermione flinch. If she weren't so desperate to ensure that he'd keep spying for them, she would have sneered and asked why he hadn't made such an allowance for Dumbledore. He seemed to see the retort in her expression and his jaw twitched.

She bit her tongue and glanced awkwardly around the shack. "I do want to finish learning occlumency."

"Alright."

His tone was clipped, and he appeared to have boxed in his anger. His face smoothed into that cold, indolent mask once more. But his silver eyes continued to study her. She could almost feel his gaze against her skin.

He moved toward her.

He felt simultaneously the same, and yet different. As though he were going through the same motions, but more consciously than he had in the past. There was a subtle element of over-precision.

He tilted her head back with his fingertips. When she looked deep into his eyes, she could see a bitterness that she didn't think had been there before.

He sank painlessly into her mind.

It was more of the same for the next two weeks. More occlumency and a reserved Malfoy. Conversation remained stilted, although the intelligence he provided continued to flow generously and remained sound.

Hermione berated herself internally each week as he apparated away after exchanging less than a dozen words with her.

Her psychological sketch of him had stalled. Each week, she added more questions with no answers. The list of potential motives ranged from the magnanimous to the monstrous.

She could tell that she was almost done with occlumency training. Malfoy's invasions of her mind were growing agonizingly painful and aggressive as he tested her technique and abilities.

She was tempted to ask if he still intended to train her in dueling, but she was afraid to bring up the subject.

She was beginning to feel desperate.

When she got to the shack she paced nervously, trying to come up with some way of breaking through the awkwardness. There had to be some way to get through to him. Some weakness she could find to get inside.

Malfoy appeared in front of her with an abrupt crack, and seemed to wince slightly as he straightened.

Hermione had seen that subtle expression often enough to identify it immediately, no matter how carefully concealed. Without even pausing to think, she whipped her wand out and cast a rapid diagnostic on him.

Before she could glance down for the results, Malfoy lunged forward, knocked her wand away, and had her pinned to the wall.

"What are you doing?" he snarled.

Right. He probably wasn't in the habit of letting people cast magic in his direction.

She met his eyes steadily. "You're hurt."

He snatched his hands away from her and stepped back.

"It's nothing," he said. "I'll have it taken care of later."

Hermione's eyes dropped down to the colours and details surrounding her wand, lying on the floor a few feet away, reading the most obvious parts.

"You've got several fractured ribs, a concussion, and internal bruising. It'll take me ten minutes to fix it. And—" she gave him a pointed look, "apparating will hurt even more the next time. If you leave the fractures and keep doing it, your ribs may fully break. You could puncture a lung. If there are shards, the ribs would have to be removed and regrown."

He stared at her for several moments before rolling his eyes. "Fine."

She knelt down and grabbed her wand. "Strip—from the waist up."

He went still for a moment.

"I thought that was my line," he finally said as he reached up stiffly and unfastened his cloak, letting it pool in a careless heap on the floor. "If you wanted me so badly, you only needed to ask."

He leered at her in an overtly fake way.

Everyone had methods for handling pain. Harry got very quiet, while Ron would become what Fred and George had termed "bitchy." Seamus and Charlie swore in such volume and length that they had to be silenced.

Pain clearly made Malfoy even more sarcastic than he already was.

At least that meant he was talking to her again.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Yes. Nothing gets me going like the sight of an abdomen mottled with purple and green bruising."

"I always knew you were a sadistic bitch."

The comment caught Hermione so off-guard she burst out laughing.

Malfoy appeared astonished by the success as he began unbuttoning his shirt and awkwardly trying to shrug it off.

He had a shoulder injury too.

She reached out slowly like she were approaching a defensive animal. He didn't flinch away, so she set to pulling his shirt off of him gently and taking in the damage.

He appeared to have been flung, extremely violently, into—something.

His shoulder had been dislocated, but he must have popped it back in place. His entire right side was completely covered in bruises. It was remarkable that his arm wasn't shattered.

"What happened?" she inquired with sincere curiosity.

"New pack of werewolves," he answered shortly. "There were leadership issues."

"So, what? You fought a werewolf alpha?" she asked skeptically as she started repairing his ribs.

"Well, he was strictly forbidden from biting or clawing, and I wasn't allowed to kill him. But—when you've got beasts with a pack hierarchy and you try to run them without beating them into submission first, you're just waiting for an insurrection," Malfoy explained as though such things were common knowledge.

"Is all this from winning or losing?" she asked as she repaired the fracture on another rib.

He glared at her. "Winning, obviously. I wouldn't have been apparating anywhere if I'd lost. Fucking animal didn't even think to use his wand. They all go feral once they start running in packs."

He rolled his eyes as he said it and then added "Now I'm ostensibly the alpha of a werewolf pack. Adds to my natural charm, I think. "

"The alpha is sure to try to kill you," Hermione pointed out.

Malfoy snorted. "He's welcome to try. It will take me less than a minute to take him down once I'm allowed to kill him." He sneered.

Hermione didn't reply. With a nonverbal spell she summoned her satchel and pulled out the emergency kit she always kept with her.

"Sit down and drink this," she instructed as she handed him a potion. "It'll deal with the concussion you have."

While he was downing it, she rubbed her hands together to warm them and then dipped her fingers into a small jar of paste.

She eyed him thoughtfully for a moment before lightly setting her hand on his bare shoulder.

He nearly jumped out of his skin.

"Relax," she said, feeling the muscles in his shoulders grow taut beneath her fingers. "It won't sink in well if you're tense."

Malfoy didn't relax at all.

She rolled her eyes.

She drew her fingers lightly over his shoulder, spreading the paste and letting him get used to the contact. The muscles in his shoulders flinched and twinged slightly. It reminded Hermione of petting a skittish horse.

Of all the contexts in which she had imagined Malfoy eventually half-naked in her presence, healing him had surprisingly not been one of them. But—she could use this to patch things and continue working on her initial strategy.

He was assuredly lonely. He seemed unsettled by physical contact that wasn't either violent or sexual.

She supposed that wasn't surprising. Who was there to be kind to him? By his account his brutal training with Bellatrix had been unimpeded by anyone, even his mother. The thought made her shiver slightly.

Crucioing a sixteen year old to teach him occlumency and then leaving him to pass out from it.

She could use that emptiness. That loneliness. The need for comfort was written into the human psyche. Malfoy might not even be conscious enough of the absence to be defensive. If she awakened that need—

—she'd be in.

Non-sexual physical contact was something she was comfortable with. Touching bodies. Being soothing and comforting. It was, she realised, an unexpected advantage she held over Malfoy. He liked clear lines. She would blur them and then slip through the gaps.

She leaned forward, just slightly, so that her mouth was close to his ear. His skin smelled faintly of salt, along with subtle, biting undertones of oakmoss and the sharp green scent of papyrus.

"This will hurt a bit," she said softly.

Then she began to knead the muscle in order to force the healing paste deep into the tissue and restore the stretched tendons. If she didn't get it to sink in fully, the damage could become permanent and Malfoy might become prone to getting his shoulder dislocated.

"Fuck," he groaned. "You are a bitch."

Her hands stilled for a moment before she resumed.

"The claim has been made before," she noted quietly.

That response seemed to catch Malfoy slightly off-guard. He subsided and clenched his jaw while she continued. Within a minute she was done but she continued massaging his shoulder. Gently. In a way that was—strictly speaking—not medically necessary.

After an extra minute, she paused with her hands resting lightly on his shoulder.

"I need to finish up with your ribs now. It's easiest if you lie back."

He sighed, and lay down on the floor. She stuffed his cloak behind his head, and shifted herself around so that she was sitting beside him.

He was staring at her with intense suspicion.

She busied herself with her healing kit, and fished out a large vial of serum. After a quick spell to clean the paste off her hands, she poured the viscous liquid into her palm. She spread it across his arm, side, and chest in small circular motions. She took note of where it vanished fastest, and added an additional layer of serum.

With her free hand she cast a new diagnostic charm. He had a kidney contusion too. She sighed faintly.

"You've got a bruised kidney. I don't have the potion for it with me, so you'll have to go see a healer for that. It's not severe, but it'll hurt for a few days if you don't get it taken care of."

The bruises on his chest were slowly vanishing beneath her fingers. As they did, the circular motions she was drawing grew gradually slower as she appraised him.

He was—quite attractive. Physically.

He must have a genetic propensity toward low body fat because all the muscles in his torso and arms stood out with stark definition. His whole body was hard and angular, without even a hint of softness. He wasn't a bodybuilder, but he was—fit.

Most men had at least a layer of fat cushioning their flesh before meeting muscle. Despite how strong all the Weasley boys were, their muscle definition was generally somewhat faint beneath their skin. Harry had an eternal propensity toward scrawniness, regardless of his physical condition.

It wasn't surprising, she supposed. Lucius Malfoy was well-built and far from portly, while Narcissa had been thin as a lath.

She studied Malfoy thoughtfully.

"Do you leer at all your patients, or am I special?" Malfoy abruptly drawled.

She started and blushed.

"I wasn't," she said defensively. "I was just wondering about your body fat ratio."

"Of course you were," Malfoy said snorting.

She withdrew her hands.

"You're done," she told him quietly.

He sat up and rotated his shoulder as he studied her repair work on his ribs. Then he drew his shirt back on, and rebuttoned it quickly.

Hermione looked away and began packing up her healing kit.

"So—how does a person beat a werewolf without killing him?" she inquired.

"A Bombarda Maxima with the wandpoint against his eyeball seems to do the trick," Malfoy said casually as he picked up his cloak and stood. "But you have to let them get that close. Which obviously did not go entirely as planned."

She stared at him.

"You blew up his eye?"

"It would have killed a wizard, but werewolves never know when to die."

"He is most assuredly going to try to kill you," Hermione told him seriously.

"I'm counting on it," he said savagely.

She rolled her eyes and stood up.

"So. More werewolves. Any other information?"

He wandlessly conjured a scroll.

"A few new non-lethal curses your Order might deign to use without impugning their precious consciences. Details on a new prison in Cornwall. Also, the Dark Lord is considering making his name into a taboo. You may want to warn all your foolhardy fighters against throwing it around as a demonstration of their Gryffindor courage."

Hermione accepted it, and he turned to go.

"Thanks for the patch job, Granger."

He vanished.

Hermione glanced around the shack for a moment before slipping the scroll into her satchel.

She had healed Draco Malfoy.

She had healed loads of people, but somehow healing him felt different.

For a few minutes he hadn't felt like a Death Eater. He had simply been a person who was in pain.

A person.

She wasn't used to thinking about him in that way.

It felt safer to make him impersonal. A concept in her mind.

Death Eater. Murderer. Spy. Target. Tool.

That was how she preferred to categorise him.

Not as an injured person. Not someone who winced from fractured ribs. Not someone so unused to physical touch they flinched away reflexively. Not someone—attractive.

The interaction had appeared to patch the awkwardness; to bridge the space that had formed. But it had also carved away at the "otherness" that she had been able to apply to him; as her enemy, the murderer of Albus Dumbledore. The perspective that enabled her to think unflinchingly about potentially manipulating him into his grave.

Thinking about him as a person made him less of a monster in her mind.

She couldn't allow herself to do that. It awakened the Hermione of Hogwarts, the fourteen year old girl who had knitted hats and started a Society for the Promotion of Elvish Welfare. That righteous teenager would be horrified by how her future self stood rationalising the strategic necessity of intellectually dehumanising Draco Malfoy.

Hermione's hands shook slightly as she shuffled the thought into the back of her mind.

And—he had come to her as soon as she'd arrived. Despite his injuries. He'd come.

She wondered if that meant something.

Hermione returned to Grimmauld Place and went immediately up to her room. Before walking in, she peered surreptitiously around the door to ensure the room was empty.

Harry and Ginny were "not" together. Ginny had sought Hermione out several weeks before to assure her of that detail. It had simply been a fling. In the heat of the moment.

There was apparently a lot of heat, given that Hermione had nearly walked in on them a dozen times since.

Hermione, along with everyone else in Grimmauld, was feigning ignorance over Harry's dramatically improved mood. He'd bound through the house like a joyous stag.

Hermione pulled her notebook from beneath her bed and muttered the counter-charms for the security measures she had placed on it.

She flipped through the pages carefully. Looking over everything she'd written, taking note of how her opinions and theories had evolved and scattered. She nibbled on the tip of her quill as she underlined a comment she had made weeks before.

Lonely. Isolated.

She was growing convinced that it was a central pillar to him. Dead mother. Insane father. Ambitious friends all devoted to their own self-preservation.

Whatever was driving Malfoy to cast himself off from Voldemort and throw in his lot with the Order was probably a secret from everyone.

There was no room for honesty and friendship while serving under the rule of a megalomaniac who was the most powerful legilimens in the wizarding world.

Hermione was almost certain that no one on Voldemort's side knew Malfoy was a spy. He wouldn't possibly risk it.

Hermione could be a safe repository for his secrets. If she got him to trust her. If her occlumency was good enough, he'd be able to rationalise it to himself. She'd turn his strengths into weaknesses she could capitalise on.

She poked her head under her bed in search of a psychology book she wanted to reference. As she looked over the books piled up, she stilled—

They had been moved.

The difference was slight, but she was certain. Someone had been snooping under her bed. She cast a detection spell that came back blank.

She looked back at her notebook. She cast a series of charms and analytic spells on it, looking for tampering. There were no signs.

She stared under the bed again, and then around the room.

Kreacher.

The dratted elf rarely did more than sulk and insult people, but occasionally he would go on a half-hearted cleaning spree.

The room did appear to have been dusted. Ginny's generally unmade bed had been straightened somewhat.

Hermione relaxed slightly, but she cast several extra spells on her books and a ward that would notify her if anyone were to disturb the books again. She also added a very thorough self-destruction spell on the notebook if it were tampered with by anyone.

As she was standing up to leave, Ginny walked in.

"You're back early," Ginny said.

Hermione glanced down at her watch. She was. Her meetings with Malfoy were regularly exceeding the allotted half-hour. It was the first time she'd returned before 8:30. Normally Hermione had to rush to store the potion ingredients before her 9:30 shift in the hospital ward.

"Lucky day," Hermione said.

"Yeah," said Ginny, looking slightly awkward. "Um. I wanted to—ask you about something."

Hermione waited.

Ginny tugged nervously at her hair. She'd kept it cut in a bob just past her chin ever since a long ponytail had been grabbed during a battle, and she'd been nearly killed by a hag.

"I—well—you, obviously know about me and Harry," Ginny said.

Hermione gave a short nod.

"Right. Well. The thing is, I want to be careful. I've been using the charm. But—there's something about Prewetts; they're not like other wizarding families. They just get pregnant somehow. Ron and I were both accidents after the twins came along. So—I was wondering if you'd make me a contraceptive potion. If you have the time. I was always rubbish at potions. If you can't—that's fine. I can ask Padma. I know you're terribly busy. I just—I didn't want you to think I didn't want to ask you."

"Of course. I'll be brewing tonight anyway. It will be an easy thing include. Do you have a preference about taste? The most effective ones don't taste very pleasant."

"I don't care what it tastes like if it works," Ginny said boldly.

"Well, I've already got a few vials of one variety. I can give them to you now, if you'd like."

"You do?" Ginny blinked and stared at Hermione suspiciously. "Are you—?"

Hermione could see Ginny running a list of possible men in Hermione's life.

"You're not—with Snape, are you?" Ginny suddenly choked.

Hermione gaped.

"God—No!" she said, spluttering and waving her hands as though she were trying to ward something off. "I'm a healer! I keep a lot of things on hand. Good grief! What—why would you even—"

Ginny looked slightly abashed.

"He's just the only person you ever seem to talk to for long. Aside from Fred, who's with Angelina. Everyone else you just end up fighting with. And not in the hot and bothered, angsty sex later kind of way."

"That doesn't mean I'm shagging him," Hermione muttered, feeling as though her face were about it burst into flames. "He's a colleague. I consult with him about potions."

"You just seem lonely," Ginny said, giving Hermione a long look.

Hermione started slightly and stared at Ginny.

"You don't talk to anyone anymore," Ginny said. "You used to always be with Ron and Harry. But even before you left to become a healer, you've seemed more and more alone. I thought—maybe you had someone. Granted, Snape would be a weird choice for a lot of reasons—but, it's a war. It's too much for anyone to handle alone."

"Cathartic shagging is Ron's thing. Not mine," Hermione said stiffly. "Besides, it's not like I'm fighting."

Ginny looked at her pensively for a moment, before saying "I think that hospital ward is worse than the battlefield."

Hermione looked away. She had sometimes wondered if it might be, but it had never been a question she could ask anyone.

Ginny continued "I think of it every time I'm in there. In the field—everything is so focused. Even when someone's injured. You just apparate them away and then head back. You win some. You lose some. You get hit sometimes. You hit back. You get days to recover if it's bad, or if your dueling partner dies. But in the hospital ward, every battle looks like losing. I'm always more traumatised after being in there than I am by fighting."

Hermione was silent.

"You don't ever get time off," Ginny added. "They can never spare you long enough to let you grieve. I know from Harry and Ron that you're still pushing for dark arts when you go to the Order meetings. I don't agree—but I get it. I realise that you see the war from a different angle from us. Probably the worst one. So—I'm just saying, if you had someone, I'd be really happy for you. Even if it was Snape."

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"You should probably stop talking now if you still want that contraceptive potion," Hermione said with a glare.

Ginny snapped her mouth shut. Hermione grabbed her satchel off the bed.

"Come on. They're in my potion supply closet," Hermione said, walking out of the bedroom.

The vials were all stored up on the top shelf in a small box. Hermione pulled out a dozen and put them into a small pouch for Ginny.

"One a day. It's best if you take it at the same time every day. I'll make another batch this week and give you a month's supply."

"Thanks, Hermione."

Ginny slipped away, and Hermione packed the box back up onto the top shelf.

She had lied. Contraceptive was not a potion she kept on hand. It had been Hermione's personal supply which she had been taking as a precaution since the day after Moody approached her about Malfoy.

The next week Malfoy was in the shack when Hermione arrived. When she opened the door, he stared at her with an expression of mild irritation.

She looked at him confusedly.

"Am I late?" she asked glancing at her watch.

"No," he said, his tone clipped.

She closed the door awkwardly and waited.

"I think we're done with occlumency," he said after a minute.

"Alright."

She started to open her mouth to ask him if he intended to train her in dueling but then shut it again and waited. Something about his mood unsettled her slightly.

"We'll start with basic dueling so I can see how bad you are at it," he announced.

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Fine," she said. "What are the rules?"

"None for you. Do whatever you want," he said. "I'll restrict myself to stinging hexes. I want to see how long you can last."

Hermione blushed.

"I'll just tell you now I'm going to be awful," she said.

"Yes. I'm expecting that."

She glared at him, put her satchel on the floor by the door and placed a protective ward around it. Then she turned to face him.

He'd moved across the room and was leaning lazily against the wall.

"Alright."

He reached into his robes and withdrew his wand. She cocked her head to the side.

"That's not your wand from school, is it?" she asked.

He looked down and spun it in his fingers.

"No," he admitted. "My unicorn hair didn't handle the dark arts very well so I had to replace it. Still Hawthorn wood, but less yielding, with a dragon heartstring core. It's also a few inches longer."

He raised his eyebrows suggestively as he said the last line.

Hermione filed the information away for future analysis. She thought there was a book on wand theory at Grimmauld Place in the Black library.

She got into dueling position.

Malfoy straightened and entered the same position with a flourish.

Hermione had been trying to practice dueling whenever she could find the time to sneak into the practice room. She shot a nonverbal stunner at him and he deflected it easily with a shield as he shot a series of stinging hexes at her.

She cast her own shield rapidly and kept it in place with a fianto duri spell.

Malfoy cast an endless stream of hexes and carelessly knocked any spells she sent toward him without even moving.

Despite the low impact of the spell he was using, the rapidity with which he cast hexes was wearing down Hermione's shield.

Before she could recast her shield, he shot a low hex at her feet. She yelped slightly as she was struck on the ankle.

It went rapidly downhill from there. She jumped backward without thinking, and left herself open. He immediately struck her with an additional five hexes.

"Alright!" she shouted. "You've won. Stop it!"

"That's not how it works, Granger," he drawled while continuing to nonverbally shoot hexes at her. "In the battlefield you win or you die. Or you run away."

Hermione physically dodged his spells and finally managed to recast her shield. She was standing gingerly on one foot. Her side, where he'd repeatedly struck her, was swelling and inflamed.

She angrily shot a slightly dark curse at him. Not anything deadly but more serious than a stunner.

Malfoy deflected it and quirked an eyebrow.

"The kitten has claws," he said with mock wonder.

"Oh, stuff it," she snarled as she cast a series of nonverbal spells in his direction.

"Good god, Granger, your aim is atrocious," he told her while still machine gunning her with stinging hexes. "I'm not even moving and you're missing me."

"I am aware."

"No wonder they pulled you from combat."

"Shut up!"

"Struck a nerve, have I?" he said dryly. His grey eyes were glinting, and she realised that he was punishing her for something. Whatever had been irritating him when she'd arrived, he was getting back at her for it.

Passive-aggressive wanker.

He wasn't even trying. He already knew she was rubbish. He was just doing it for his own personal amusement.

She spun away from his hexes and cast her shield again. She was already getting tired from the combination of dodging and casting.

She gripped her wand tighter and kept going until he struck her wand hand with so many hexes she couldn't hold it anymore.

Her wand fell to the ground. Rather than try to dodge, she just stood there as he struck her on the torso and legs with dozens more hexes.

Then he finally stopped and she stared at him.

"Feel better now?" she inquired.

He smirked and put his wand away.

"I've wanted to hex you for years," he said with a satisfied gleam in his eyes.

"I already told you you could," she said in a wooden voice as she began mentally cataloging everywhere on her body she'd been struck. "But I suppose you like to pretend you're giving a sporting chance."

"It's not my fault you're so pathetic at defense."

"No. That's on me," she said quietly, lifting up her hand and wincing slightly as she tried to move her fingers.

The stinging hex was non-permanent in its damage, but it also couldn't be reversed magically. With the quantity and concentration Malfoy had used, it would take her more than a day before the pain from all the welts faded. She was certain he'd chosen the hex specifically because of that.

"For the record," she said, trying to keep her voice from shaking. "This qualifies as interfering with my work. So perhaps use a reversible hex, or keep it all to one location next time."

Malfoy said nothing.

"So—" she asked after a minute. "Do I get to know why?"

"When it comes to cursing you, Granger, your mere existence is reason enough."

She pressed her lips together, and swallowed hard. An aching sensation spread across her nose and cheeks and she blinked it away.

"Did you have any information this week?"

"No."

"Alright. Well, I'll be going then," she said, kneeling stiffly and picking up her wand with her left hand. Then she went over and pulled her satchel onto her shoulder, flinching slightly when the strap landed on several of the welts.

Malfoy didn't say a word as she walked out.

She stood outside the shack, feeling at a loss. Not at Malfoy's cruelty, but over what she was supposed to do. She couldn't go back to Grimmauld Place and have someone realise she'd been hexed. She'd have no explanation for it.

She walked gingerly over to the stump and sat on the edge of it.

With a sigh, she pulled her satchel off her shoulder and began pulling sacks and bottles out. She'd have to throw away all of the potion supplies she'd foraged. They required careful storage in order to maintain their magical efficacy. She wouldn't be able to perform the necessary spellwork with her wand hand in its current condition.

She sadly dumped the murtlap tentacles onto the ground. She would have to snare and kill another one. And the fairy wings. Then she dumped out all the rest until she had nothing but a bundle of stinging nettles left.

With grimace, she snatched them up and pressed them against both ankles and all over both hands and wrists. Then she lightly brushed her face with the bundle as well. She dropped the nettles onto the ground and watched as the multitude of tiny welts blistered up across her skin and obscured all the hexes her clothes didn't conceal.

With a sigh, she stood up, and holding her wand lightly, she apparated back to Grimmauld Place.

"Hermione? What happened to you?" Angelina inquired wide eyed as she walked in the door.

"I tripped and fell into a nettle patch," Hermione lied.

"Oh golly." Angelina stared at Hermione's face until she began to blush faintly. "Anything you can do about it?"

"Unfortunately not. There aren't any spells for nettle stings. They should fade in a day. But I couldn't forage very well. So I'm going to have to go again tomorrow."

"Too bad. Your poor face."

Hermione shrugged mildly, "My hands are worse. I have to go tell Pomfrey. I'm not sure how much good I'm going to be in the hospital ward today."

Because of Malfoy's hexes, Hermione found herself unexpectedly with a free day. Not that she was able to enjoy it much without being able to use her hands. She couldn't even bend her fingers enough to grasp and turn a page in a book.

She couldn't remember the last time she'd had time off. Any time she got time away from healing, she used it to brew some of the more complex potions, or restock her potion supplies.

She sat and stared out of the window in the attic, watching the passing muggles.

She wondered what it was that had provoked Malfoy.

She wondered if perhaps getting hexed by him might actually be a good sign. That it meant she was getting to him, and so he was lashing out defensively. Healing him the week before had been a shift in their interaction; he'd probably seen hexing her as a way to put her back in her place.

He was so vindictive.

Occlumency training had hurt far more, but it had been constructive. There had been a point to the pain. There had been potions to deal with the migraines.

Hexing her had just been his nastiness.

It was a rubbish way to appraise her fighting abilities, because once he'd hit her with the hexes, she wouldn't be able to start over for another week. If he'd wanted to test her aim or endurance, he could have just repeatedly immobilised or petrified or stunned her.

He hadn't used any serious or permanent hexes, presumably because it brushed against that moral code he was so conceited about. His 'ethical line'. He didn't like to think of himself as sadistic or vindictive. He probably told himself that he was giving her a sporting chance. That she deserved it each time she got hit because she should have dodged the spells.

He didn't want to think of himself as cruel.

He probably thought he was better than that.

Hermione stared down at her hands.

On the grand scale of pain and cruelty, stinging hexes barely registered. Yet emotionally, she found the experience had devastated her more than she was prepared to admit.

She pressed her eyes into the crook of her arm as she tried not to cry.

The tears slipped out anyway.